Colorado Lawmakers Shot Down a Version of Alabama's IVF Decision

As the Alabama legislature scrambles to reverse damage caused by the legal recognition of frozen embryos as children, a handful of Colorado lawmakers just tried to follow in the state's footsteps.

Thirteen Colorado Republicans signed on to a bill to define "personhood" as beginning at the moment of fertilization. This would have banned abortion and protected frozen embryos created as part of the in vitro fertilization (IVF) process from homicide, assault and neglect laws — so when embryos are discarded, IVF providers and patients could be charged with murder.

The Alabama Supreme Court made a similar decision on February 16, ruling that "unborn children are children" regardless of developmental stage. Within days, the state’s three major IVF providers paused services in Alabama out of fear of legal repercussions. Now, Alabama lawmakers are hurriedly pushing through legislation to protect IVF providers from lawsuits and criminal prosecution in an attempt to resume fertilization treatments.

Colorado's bill failed during its first committee vote on Monday, March 4 — but more than two-thirds of the state's House Republican caucus signed on in support of it, including the party's highest-ranking members: Minority Leader Rose Pugliese of Colorado Springs and Assistant Minority Leader Ty Winter of Trinidad.

"Babies are humans from the moment of conception. It's tragic that a society would be killing its own babies," Republican Representative Scott Bottoms of Colorado Springs, who introduced the bill, said during the hearing. "These are the most innocent among us, and they should be protected."

Bottoms's bill was primarily meant to criminalize abortion, not fertilization treatments, but he acknowledged that it would likely classify discarding frozen embryos as homicide, referencing the Alabama court's ruling.

He argued that destroying embryos should be illegal, calling it "immoral."

"I think that's wrong," Bottoms told his colleagues. "I think that's prosecutable."

Experts say IVF usually takes multiple embryos to achieve pregnancy, as not all frozen embryos survive being thawed, not all thawed embryos have high reproductive potential and not all high-potential embryos successfully implant into the uterus. Unused embryos are often discarded. Patients can donate the embryos to other couples or pay to keep them stored frozen, but these options aren't ideal for embryos determined to be unlikely to lead to a successful pregnancy.

Colorado legislators shot down the proposed bill 8-3 along party lines, with all Democrats in opposition and all Republicans in support.

“Abortion and IVF treatments are safe, legal and protected in Colorado — we will not let Republicans legislate away our fundamental rights,” Representative Jenny Willford, a Northglenn Democrat, said after voting against the bill. “Make no mistake: if Republicans were in power, abortion and IVF treatments would be criminalized, and pregnant people who miscarry or seek essential abortion care could be charged with homicide.”

In criminalizing abortion, the proposed bill would have allowed no exceptions for rape, incest or instances when a mother's life is at risk. Bottoms argued that life-or-death scenarios would be covered under the state's "choice of evils" statute, which provides a defense for committing a crime to prevent greater harm. He offered no such explanation for the other scenarios.

"Somebody that has been raped that goes to seek an abortion is still choosing to murder a baby, regardless of how that baby came into conception," Bottoms said. "Murder is murder, and people that choose to murder little babies should be held accountable legally in the court system."

Lawmakers rejected the bill after three and a half hours of discussion and debate on Monday, including testimonies from over forty people in support of the bill and sixteen in opposition. Most supporters quoted Bible passages and told the lawmakers they'd be judged for voting against the bill, while the opponents pointed out that Colorado voters have repeatedly turned down abortion bans in the past.

During her testimony, Hazel Gibson, the reproductive rights director of ProgressNow Colorado, said she received a life-saving abortion after suffering an ectopic pregnancy at 27 years old. The experience left her unable to get pregnant naturally, but she went on to have two children using IVF.

"If this bill had been the law when this happened, I would have been put under legal scrutiny when I was grieving one of the worst losses of my life," Gibson said. "It would have kept me from starting a family."

Colorado has among the most permissive abortion laws in the country, but more than a dozen failed bills seeking to outlaw abortion have been introduced in the legislature since 2016.

Following this latest failure, Bottoms pledged to continue bringing forward legislation to ban abortion.

"When people let a majority rule on these kinds of issues, that's a dangerous thing. ... That is the same thing that happened in Germany in World War II," Bottoms said. "Even if 99.9 percent of people [disagree], I'm still going to run a bill like this."